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The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

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Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#171

Post by ameister14 »

Alex3917 wrote: post #166
DoreenMichele wrote: post #109

The question I’m interested in: How do we unlock maximum human potential? Last I checked, welfare does the opposite of this. It helps people merely subsist, not strive for greatness. Then he goes on to compare YC to basic income. Seriously? They take a share in your company and help you develop it. That isn't money for nothing. If he weren't a millionaire and the current president of YC, would we keep seeing articles…

> Welfare does the opposite of this. It helps people merely subsist, not strive for greatness. I mean the entire United States was founded on the belief that welfare unlocks greatness, because the founding fathers all believed that citizens wouldn't contribute to having a republic unless they shared in the ownership of the means of production. It's not like this is some crazy new experiment, we've been doing this for…

Representation based on land ownership is close to the opposite of UBI

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#172

Post by mrob »

dahdum wrote: post #158
mrob wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welfare discourages striving for greatness, because as soon as you show any sign of success it's taken away from you. The "universal" in UBI means it's paid to everybody, rich and poor. It lacks the weird breakpoints and perverse incentives of welfare. You are always better off working.

Most discussions I've seen of UBI recently have shifted from universal to means tested. Regardless, wouldn't UBI need to be higher for the sick, elderly, and disabled? Either it's high enough for them and too much for everyone else, or it's too low for them. Keep adjusting and you end up with a means tested welfare system like today.

If it's means tested then it's not UBI. Sickness/disability might indeed be a problem, but it's better to address that specific problem, eg. with health care subsidies, rather than reintroducing means testing. Means testing has three major problems:

1. Incentive to game the system.

2. Social stigma to receiving benefits.

3. High administration cost.

UBI is the only welfare system that eliminates all three.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#173

Post by tomohawk »

Alex3917 wrote: post #166
DoreenMichele wrote: post #109

The question I’m interested in: How do we unlock maximum human potential? Last I checked, welfare does the opposite of this. It helps people merely subsist, not strive for greatness. Then he goes on to compare YC to basic income. Seriously? They take a share in your company and help you develop it. That isn't money for nothing. If he weren't a millionaire and the current president of YC, would we keep seeing articles…

> Welfare does the opposite of this. It helps people merely subsist, not strive for greatness. I mean the entire United States was founded on the belief that welfare unlocks greatness, because the founding fathers all believed that citizens wouldn't contribute to having a republic unless they shared in the ownership of the means of production. It's not like this is some crazy new experiment, we've been doing this for…

This is not even wrong.

EDIT:

James Madison, the principle author of the US Constitution, in reference to a bill proposing to give aid to French refugees, had this to say: "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that Article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=00...

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#174

Post by [deleted] »

tmh79 wrote: post #167
danenania wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "laziness" issue is such a distraction. If some percentage of UBI recipients sit on their couches all day, that's perfectly fine. 1 - These weren't the people who were going to move our economy and society forward in the first place. 2 - It's better if they sit on the couch and have their needs met than having them turn to violence or fueling the rise of the next Hitler. That's what will happen if we take away a…

3) its much worse if they use their newfound free time and available resources to do things that actively harm society

[deleted]

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#175

Post by Alex3917 »

ameister14 wrote: post #171
Alex3917 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Welfare does the opposite of this. It helps people merely subsist, not strive for greatness. I mean the entire United States was founded on the belief that welfare unlocks greatness, because the founding fathers all believed that citizens wouldn't contribute to having a republic unless they shared in the ownership of the means of production. It's not like this is some crazy new experiment, we've been doing this for…

Representation based on land ownership is close to the opposite of UBI

In the 1700s capital was considered to be land, because owning land was how you made money — either by working the land or by renting it to others to work.

Whereas today capital is considered to be mainly money, because owning money is how you make more money. E.g. by investing in Google in the 90s, Bitcoin in the 2000s, etc.

So giving people money today is basically the equivalent of giving people land in the 1700 and 1800s.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#176

Post by sytelus »

The experiment Sam mentions is already heavily biased. They are giving away $1000-$2000 to few families in Oakland as basic income. The problem is that these families are already aware that some Silicon Valley billionaire is performing experiment on them and they know this life line would disappear in future. So they would be forced to make best out of it unlike if this was provided by government for rest of their lives unconditionally.

Another counter point is that doing this at scale would have huge impact on pricing of services. A lot of people do monotonous boring repetitive work they absolutely hate even if it generates bare bone income. This can include everything from janitorial services to cashier at grocery store to construction sites. Once you get same amount of money for free, there is less incentive for anyone to do this sort of work. Consequently supply for workers would reduce while demand stays same. This would inflate prices of goods and services in general economy. My hunch is that price increase would be exactly such that to offset the basic income. So the net effect would be having no basic income at all. In countries like Finland things are different because of their sovereign funds, tax structure and external income sources.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#177

Post by [deleted] »

Suncho wrote: post #120
DoreenMichele wrote: post #109

The question I’m interested in: How do we unlock maximum human potential? Last I checked, welfare does the opposite of this. It helps people merely subsist, not strive for greatness. Then he goes on to compare YC to basic income. Seriously? They take a share in your company and help you develop it. That isn't money for nothing. If he weren't a millionaire and the current president of YC, would we keep seeing articles…

> The question I’m interested in: How do we unlock maximum human potential? > Last I checked, welfare does the opposite of this. It helps people merely subsist, not strive for greatness. It depends what you mean by "human potential." I agree with you that "human potential" is not the right way to frame what basic income unlocks. By giving people money to spend, it unlocks the economy's potential to produce wealth for…

[deleted]

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#178

Post by dragonwriter »

dahdum wrote: post #158
mrob wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welfare discourages striving for greatness, because as soon as you show any sign of success it's taken away from you. The "universal" in UBI means it's paid to everybody, rich and poor. It lacks the weird breakpoints and perverse incentives of welfare. You are always better off working.

Most discussions I've seen of UBI recently have shifted from universal to means tested. Regardless, wouldn't UBI need to be higher for the sick, elderly, and disabled? Either it's high enough for them and too much for everyone else, or it's too low for them. Keep adjusting and you end up with a means tested welfare system like today.

> Most discussions I've seen of UBI recently have shifted from universal to means tested.

If it's means-tested, it's not a UBI; the “U” is ”Unconditional” (less often “Universal”, with the same meaning) indicating that everyone in some defined population gets it without means, needs, or behavior-testing, specifically.

> Regardless, wouldn't UBI need to be higher for the sick, elderly, and disabled?

With a UBI, existing benefit or social insurance programs that aren't primarily means tested but address other special needs might need to be maintained, including programs offering special support for the aged, blind, and disabled.

This is different than a means-tested safety nets, though.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#179

Post by jpao79 »

contingencies wrote: post #130
Suncho wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were Sam A. instead of (or in addition to) funding UBI, I would fund R&D projects which enable people to live as off grid and self-sufficiently as possible with all the comforts of urban/suburban living without all the costs. This would be a mistake. Self-sufficiency is very inefficient. By pooling our resources, we can live much more sustainably and prosperously. If everybody in the world tried to live like t…

Self-sufficiency is very inefficient. By pooling our resources, we can live much more sustainably and prosperously. Let's draw a parallel to cloud computing versus standalone computing, for the sake of familiarity. While you sure can get reliable and scalable storage services for less money from a fat cloud provider, they're not equivalent to personally owned storage. For example access times and performance differ,…

Great analogy. To take it further, what happens if/when Amazon and Google are the only providers of any sort of cloud computing technology because all of the independent computing providers are defunct and no one knows how to make servers/disk drivers/SSDs except those two companies. Will they benevolently keep the price of computing storage low? How about once Jeff Bezos and Larry Page are no longer founders?

Then apply that thinking to Monsanto, Tyson, Archer Daniels and their pricing power on food staples.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#180

Post by Alex3917 »

tomohawk wrote: post #173
Alex3917 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Welfare does the opposite of this. It helps people merely subsist, not strive for greatness. I mean the entire United States was founded on the belief that welfare unlocks greatness, because the founding fathers all believed that citizens wouldn't contribute to having a republic unless they shared in the ownership of the means of production. It's not like this is some crazy new experiment, we've been doing this for…

This is not even wrong. EDIT: James Madison, the principle author of the US Constitution, in reference to a bill proposing to give aid to French refugees, had this to say: "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that Article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=00...

Just grab any U.S. history book. The original drafts of the Declaration of Independence talked about the importance of property, because the founding fathers spent an enormous amount of time thinking through the implications of what would happen if citizens just voted to take all the property away from the wealthy. (Democracy was basically Bitcoin of the 1700s.) And they came to the conclusion that the only way to prevent that from happening was through ensuring that every citizen owned a stake in the means of production, and believed that only with welfare would it be possible to unlock the potential of both the individual and the government.

Also, in reference to your Madison quote, in The Federal Papers he expressed the fear that if the majority of Americans didn't own land then they would vote to take away the property rights of those who did. His solution was "extending the sphere", aka making the country large enough so that everyone could own land. That way the government could give away "free land", but that once individuals already owned personal land the government wouldn't have to take it away in redistribution programs or whatever. He was never able to come up with a longterm solution, but he recognized that it was a fundamental problem that could eventually destroy that republic.

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